The Other Leaf
by thirdmetaphor
Summary: A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. Hashirama. Madara. Various oneshots.
1. Chapter 1

**The Other Leaf**

A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect - Murakami, Kafka on the Shore.

This series is a collection of drabbles that I post on tumblr. I'm uploading them here as well so I can have all my work in one location.

All HashiMada.

* * *

**Senju Clothing**

* * *

Hashirama knows that Madara dislikes his clothing. It's usually scuffed from his motions, which is nothing new to either of them, but the dirt shows relentlessly when all he wears is the traditional light beige of the Senju. Looks of disdain are frequently thrown at his cropped haori with its rough-hewn edges, at the cut of his hair that his father had done with a clean bowl with a not-so-clean kunai, and sometimes even at the way his tied belt pulls unflatteringly at pants that look like they've been cut out of drapery-cloth.

And at the age of fifteen Hashirama thinks that all of this is utterly hilarious, so he continues to come dressed in more bizarre things, wondering how far he can go before his friend will break out of his reluctant politeness and snap at him.

So one day he arrives dressed in the haori of his second brother, which is large enough to bury his lanky form in rolls of cloth that trail behind him on the ground. It's hard to climb over the forest logs with such troublesome attire but it takes all he can manage to stop a grin from bursting onto his face when Madara turns to see him.

"Something wrong, Madara?"

The boy blinks. "Are you wearing… a bedsheet?"

Hashirama shakes his head, smile still threatening to pull at his lips. "Of course not! It was just really dark in the morning so I didn't know I was getting stuff from Kawarama's side of the closet instead of my own. He's real tall, you know."

Madara gives him the most incredulous look he's ever managed, and then straightens, clasping his hands awkwardly in front of him while averting his eyes. "Listen, I am nearly the same size as you and maybe I can try unstitching the clan symbol off my extra set of clothes-"

"I'm not a charity case," he corrects. "If anything that's _your _clan's situation. I just like having a little freedom to my movements." Hashirama gestures widely with his sleeve to prove his point, and the extra-loose cloth of the haori hangs nearly a foot off his fingers. He smiles and waves it around like it's an appendage of feathers.

Almost completely forgetting the jab at his clan's condition, Madara crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. Hashirama grins further, because the boy looks utterly unimpressed and this is cause for celebration because he hasn't looked _this _weirded-out since that incident with his mother's lip-paint.

"You are… kind of pathetic."

He sticks his tongue out. "We can't all be as fashion-conscious as the mighty Uchiha."

"Did you actually walk through your clan compound like that? Those clothes actually hurt me."

"Would you mind if I take them off, then?-" He asks cheekily.

"Keep them on, pervert."

"-Though I _will_ accept that offer of yours if you keep the Uchiha emblem on," he continues, staring off thoughtfully. "I'll wear it to the Sarutobi clan grounds and confuse the hell out of them."

"I'm not giving you my clothes, idiot Senju!" Seeing him slump, Madara swallows his words. "…but perhaps I could sacrifice a vial of black dye-"

"Oh awesome!" Hashirama leaps up. "I don't think I've _ever _worn something that dark before."

"It's convenient. Bloodstains and dirt don't show," he huffs.

Hashirama walks over from the trees and, in his excitement, trips roughly over the long hem of his brother's haori. Dust clouds spiral up around him amid his friend's chuckles. Giving up, he slips out of Kawarama's clothing and stands up sheepishly in his undershirt. "Ok well maybe that one was a little out of size." But seeing Madara laugh had been worth it.

Madara gives him another look, head to toe, his nose scrunched up in his face with just the tiniest bit of partiality at the sight of an undershirt that had probably been worn by more than one Senju boy. Then he finally waves Hashirama over to sit next to him by the glittering surface of the river.


	2. Chapter 2

**On Top**

* * *

The first time they have sex, it's hands everywhere, fumbling through Madara's nagajuban and the layers and layers of Senju-style clothing that Madara has _always _despised but does Hashirama listen to his not-so-subtle hints to change his hermit-like fashion sense? Not a chance. So he painstakingly unties every tie and unhooks every hook and by the time Hashirama is finally as bare as he is it feels like they're at the end of a tiresome battle and wasn't sex supposed to be fun?

"Idiot Senju, if it takes this long next time, I'm leaving," he mutters. But it's temporarily forgiven when Hashirama's eager mouth is against his, breathy and sweaty and dripping with heat. Madara can feel a slow pulsing against his thigh and he sighs because _of course _his stupid Senju lover would be some kind of insatiable monster who's hard _already_.

But Madara is quite insatiable himself and this is right about the moment when he looks down at himself and after a moment of pondering he decides he's fine with that so there.

This first time, it's just straight plain _let me fuck you hard against the wall and we'll deal with the rest later _and Madara finds himself with his back to that exact wall of the Uchiha gatehouse, arms wrapped around his lover's shoulders. And _did they even decide who'd be on top? _but he's seventeen and in love and his brain just storms off somewhere incomprehensible (_would it be back on time?_) and leaves him sighing into the heat of Hashirama's collarbones.

And in between every pleasured groan his Uchiha pride is trying to hint at him that maybe _something_has gone very very wrong because Hashirama's cock feels amazing inside him but, well, there's exactly that, though if there's one thing Hashirama has taught him it's that pride isn't a thing he should care about when they're together.

The second time is a little different. This time Hashirama arrives with this glint in his eye and Madara briefly wonders what he's gotten into but there's no time to think as their tongues are sliding against each other and his common sense runs off to its happy place.

"Slow," Hashirama murmurs against his mouth. "I want to go slow this time. I want to try all sorts of things."

"You'll be the death of me, idiot Senju," is Madara's calm reply but his insides feel like they're filled with that gossamer stuff cicadas' wings are made of, fluttering and saccharine sweet against the walls of his stomach as he's pushed back against the wall and weren't they going to take it slow this time?

Hashirama slides lower, onto his knees, and looks up with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I've heard about this before, but I've never actually done it, so I hope it's ok." And what that he's reaching down, taking Madara's half-hard cock past his lips and suddenly there are streaks of blinding white across Madara's vision and _oh what the hell was this some kind of pleasurable torture because oh…_ and it was like that for about five seconds.

And then.

"Dammit Hashirama teeth, teeth, _teeth_!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Unfurl**

* * *

In a way, Madara _unfurled_ around his brother. He became calmer, more reasonable, lost the strict sharpness of his gestures. Tobirama watched them through the window of the Senju compound, where the two men sat underneath a banyan tree. Madara was tapping his brush against the paper, devising the trade agreement with the Sarutobi while Hashirama looked over his shoulder and occasionally reached over to change a word.

He wouldn't admit it, never aloud, but the truth of it glared starkly in his face anyway. Madara's look was one of annoyance. Yet underneath it was a hesitant lapse of guard that should have been impossible for a warmonger like him. The Uchiha were beasts, and on the battlefield Madara was a purely primitive strength. To reconcile that monster with the man who sat calmly by his brother's side was impossible.

And judging by the look on his brother's face, he would have to learn how.

He's a monster, brother, you know that. _Yes, _a chuckle, _sometimes he is. _How can you say that so lightly? Haven't we lost kin to his ganbai on the battlefield? _In a time like this, one must learn to separate the personal from the universal. _Don't you see how he behaves around Hikaku, his own cousin? It's dehumanizing. _He's too used to war. Getting close to people is dangerous in his mind so he avoids it, and the cycle spurs itself. I'm the only one he can trust to remain alive, Tobi. _How could you possibly be friends with someone with a mindset like that? _Friends… yes, of course. Friends._

Tobirama understood only two months later when he went by the Uchiha compound, searching for his brother who had left early that evening and hadn't returned since. A tired Uchiha Hikaku informed them that the respected leaders were absent. They had left together earlier. And with a heavy feeling in his chest, Tobirama put two fingers to the ground, pulsing out a location. A riverbank. The Nakano that traversed, snakelike, through the veins of their country.

It was hot. The day scalded him. Every step through the forest dragged him back a little further, pulling, pulling at his sense of resolve. But Hashirama needed to be there for the meeting and he, the utter idiot, had forgotten. Duties of a younger Senju brother, of course.

Leaves tugged at his hair as he paused above as a silent observer, legs braced against a sturdy branch. Unnoticeable. The riverbank was below, through the shield of leaves. And the words, words that strained out against the wall of foliage like cicadas' fluttering wings, trapped him in an undeniable fact that he _didn't want to know_.

_Do you prefer it when I'm like this, deep inside, Madara? Or do you want to move this time? You're so warm when your tired. Your skin is burning. It's pleasant. No, not like that, _this _way. I want to see your face._

_Idiot Senju. If you don't stop talking I'll get a toothache._

He remained there for an eternity, clenching the branch tightly in his fingers as his brother fraternized with the enemy. Who had killed Itama. Pleasured groans arched through the trees, accompanied by Madara's absolute silence. Sometimes the shift of skin against skin, Madara's pale hand that was clasped tightly against his mouth as Hashirama rocked into him.

Then he left.

_I love him. _And we both loved Itama. _Let the past be, peace will never be accomplished if we brood over vengeance. _An enemy, and a man. Do you have no forethought towards this village you worked to create? A sheepish chuckle, _I give my blessings to your children, Tobi. Let me love him. _It's madness. _It's friendship, and love, and more friendship. Deeper than I've ever had before._

There was no arguing with Hashirama, his brother was a force of nature in more ways than one. It was at this point that Madara entered, successfully cutting off any conversation between them. He took one look at Tobirama, then at Hashirama, and he knew. Without saying a word, he curled one battle-worn hand around Hashirama's wrist, a hesitant circle, not a chain. Pulled his lover away.

_We'll talk later, Tobi, _Hashirama said, throwing a grin over one shoulder.

Tobirama watched them go. Watched the slow lowering of his brother's stressed shoulders as they receded into the distance. The way his long hair fell over one shoulder, dark and calming against the deep brown of his skin. The sudden energy to the way he walked, like a man travelling down his own well-beaten path. Comfortable.

His brother unfurled around Madara.


	4. Chapter 4

**Sake**

* * *

To a shinobi, the body was the greatest weapon. So it was traditional in the Uchiha clan that it be revered as such with the utmost care. They bathed daily even through shortages of fresh water and the shinobi preformed one hour of exercise every morning, right after waking, _before _training began. More importantly, they _never _consumed any substance detrimental to their health, and each cup of sake was diluted heavily before being taken. As the leader of this clan, Madara heavily endorsed each of these practices.

He didn't know that taking Hashirama as his lover would invalidate just about all of them.

"O-one more," Hashirama wheezed, reaching for the bottle.

Madara promptly tossed it off the table where it crashed into pieces. So much of it had already been consumed that barely any liquid stained the floor. He was more than a little lightheaded himself – he'd_warned _Hashirama to dilute it, but the idiot never listened – and was not going to risk having the servers walk in on their private room and seeing him acting in anyway a clan head shouldn't.

"C'mon a Ho 'hic kage deserves to spoil 'imself 'casionally."

The air in Madara's lungs flew when he had all of his new _Hokage's_ weight balanced on top of him._How this idiot had managed to maneuver on top in his drunken state _was a mystery to them both, but he had, and now there was the problem of how to get him _off._

"You will never drink in my presence again." He tried to slide away but suddenly Hashirama's right hand was gliding through his hair and his face was devoid of its usual silliness for all of five seconds.

"I like men with looong hair," he slurred. "Shows that they… that they aren't 'fraid of it getting in the 'hic way."

Well that was surely an interesting thought. Madara paused on the floor, relaxing in their strange position. He kept his hair long because the Uchiha tradition required it for first sons. But was that Hashirama's reason?

His thoughts droned out as Hashirama leaned down and pressed their mouths together in the clumsiest kiss he'd ever made, eyes still wide open. Madara's irises flashed red simply by instinct but that didn't seem to deter him. He finally drew back when Madara turned his head to the side, refusing to do this while his damned idiot of a lover was drunk.

Those objections intensified as Hashirama's hand moved to fumble through the ties of his pants, skidding on the waistband for three seconds before making it through. Madara's hissed as he was stroked right through the cloth of his fundoshi and _yes that felt good under the usual circumstances_but there were _people's _voices coming directly through the thin walls of the sliding doors and that was_not _facilitating his acceptance of drunken half-sex.

"Calm 'own," was whispered against his ear. "Lots of people… people do this."

"Perhaps it's not appropriate for the Hokage and his advisor," Madara growled. Despite that, this situation was amusing enough to add to the private store of facts he kept about his lover, for occasional reference. After all, there _no one else alive _who would ever know the things he was now privy to. That Hashirama was a _perverted _and_ grabby _drunk that _didn't _know how to keep his eyes off his scandalously male lover.

And that somehow, even while thoroughly drunk, the moments of his fingers were as precise as ever.

.

"Hokage-sama, Madara-sama, would you perhaps like another bottle of sa-"

The server paused in the doorway.


	5. Chapter 5

**Adherance**

* * *

Madara's first love interest is a girl named Uchiha Aiko. She's a quiet thing that holds around her an almost aristocratic beauty, and the first time Hashirama lays eyes on her is through the cracks of the walls surrounding the Uchiha compound. At the age of fifteen.

"Move aside, Madara, let me see," he urges, pushing at his friend's shoulder. Madara begrudgingly shuffles away, letting him see the girl he's somewhat admitted to being infatuated with.

Through the crack he sees her sitting, back against the wall of her house. She's a slip of a girl, but well-poised and clearly well brought-up. Her hair is braided into two long plaits and pinned neatly to the back of her head. In her hands is a wrinkled scroll that she pours over it like it contains the secrets to life.

"She's… pretty," Hashirama manages. Indeed she's _exactly _the sort of girl he could imagine Madara interesting himself in. Tall but not too tall, lithe but not too thin, and evidently well-educated. A perfect match for the head of the Uchiha clan. Something breaks inside him as he contemplates this.

"I know," Madara comments matter-of-factly, as if it would be scandalous for any girl _he _deemed worthy to look at to be anything less. "She would agree, too, she's rather acquiescent. It's too bad I cannot court her."

Cannot court her? "Why not?"

"She's my cousin," he says tonelessly. "We have strict rules on that kind of thing." And somehow, that little piece of reassurance from the world is enough to fuel the weak smile on Hashirama's lips once again. He provides a word of sympathy.

But after this, something in Madara's eyes lights up, just a tint, and he whispers, "yes, it _is _a pity. Did you know that when she leaves her hair out, it trails by her waist… like a veil of black water? It's… pleasant." That's all he can manage, as a fifteen-year-old boy who's never slept with a girl before, but the faint touch of red dusting his cheeks indicates that he would say more if he could put it into words.

Hashirama nods at this. Trying to be a friend. Pretending it's not really _Madara _that's standing in front of him. Pretending it's not the boy whose image he's touched himself to more than once before.

But the truth of it never escapes him, even when he's alone that evening in the Senju compound, ungluing the smile from his face. Madara is a traditionalist, he thinks as he strokes himself to that vivid thought. Madara is a child of the Uchiha, and he will live within the Uchiha, and no matter how hard he tries, Hashirama cannot untangle him from the Uchiha. He will become their clan head and find an Uchiha girl to marry and eventually have children with the Sharingan spinning in their eyes.

He gasps into his hand. Then lays still on the futon, heavy with sweat. A discomforting feeling nestled deep in the pit of his stomach.

What is a lover? To Madara it is someone with black hair, red eyes, the smaller breasts he seems to like, and the whir of the Sharingan in blood-shot sockets. That is what a lover looks like. A lover does not have deep brown eyes, or the melody of Hashirama's voice, or the sun-swept nature of his smile. Or the 'Senju' appended to his name.

"Maybe one day when we form out village and our clans are together, we can have political marriages to join them in blood," Hashirama suggests as they laze by the Nakano the next day. "It'll be a great idea, wouldn't it?" he eyes his friend closely, watching for a reaction.

At this, Madara's nose immediately scrunches up, and he shakes his head. "Marrying a Senju… that would be weird. It's fine, I guess, as long as _I _don't have to do it. Maybe Hikaku would agree to a political marriage. It's not like he'll ever get married any other way."

"Well, it won't really make a difference unless it's the head of the clan that does it…" Cicadas chirp nearby, and Hashirama feels the calming grass beneath his fingers. But nothing can soothe the desperate turmoil of his thoughts, whirring in his head, thinking, wondering if the boy who sits beside him can ever change, can ever give him a chance, just _one._ Because if he had a single chance he would embed himself so deeply into Madara's existence that it would be unthinkable to refuse him.

Madara speaks again after a brief, contemplative silence. "I've seen a few of your clan girls. They're nice-looking, but I don't think I could ever _marry _one. We have rules on that kind of thing."

Of course. The Uchiha have rules. Many rules. Rules about how to court, rules about which of their relatives they can date, and rules about how to treat the opposite sex from other clans. Namely, with nothing short of complete and utter abstinence. Because the Uchiha blood has to be pure. Because love isn't a word they use in respectable company.

It doesn't even strike Hashirama that Madara never considered a Senju _boy, _because he's not sure how much rejection he can handle all at once.


	6. Chapter 6

**Valley**

* * *

After five years of living with Mito's austere kind of beauty, Hashirama has almost forgotten what being around Madara feels like.

But now it's seeping back through the fury of their battle and he's never wished to be somewhere else this badly. The years have not been entirely kind to him. Weather and time sap at the rich black of his hair, and each time they fight their tie is pushed a little more to one side. But Madara is a proud man who does not relent, and Hashirama can see beauty in his unkempt form, dripping with the agony of whatever he's chosen since he left that day. He thought that kiss would say everything he couldn't but it had only drawn blood from both their mouths in the end.

"Will you come back?"

These words feel dry on his tongue, because he knows they're just formality.

"Foolish Senju, I've given you my answer."

.

Forty-fifth. And their tie is finally broken, shoved to one extreme as Hashirama kneels above him, legs shaking with the effort of holding him down, keeping him where he'll listen. Words mean nothing. What matters is the twitch of muscle, the strain of his every limb, the swear dripping off his forehead as he leans down and kisses Madara with every bit of strength he'd used to fight him.

The tang of blood fills his mouth immediately.

"Hashirama! You have no control over your emotions! Stand up and fight or kill me here!"

"Quiet." Hashirama mutters against the shell of his ear. "I'm not interested in fighting." One hand neatly undoes the clasps of his red armour. "I've missed you. Talking to you. Sparring with you. Doing this."

Madara's eyes are dark and plain, deprived of even the ounce of chakra he needs to activate his Sharingan. He clenches his teeth with an audible snap, hands clawing either side of Hashirama's waist above him. Not knowing whether to push or pull. Hashirama takes immediate advantage of this because he knows his friend well, and he knows that shinobi of action don't care for words.

"If you aren't too tired to fuck me, I've grown entirely too weak," he moves his shoulder to strike, but it's easily intercepted. Hashirama keeps him down on his chest, face pressed to the warm grass of the Valley. Hair twined with green blades.

"I've become stronger, Madara. I've become the strongest shinobi in the lands, and only because of you."

The scattering of clothes is quick, slipping away from underneath their battle wrecked forms. Time is surreal as Madara helps him unclip the length of metal armor over his shoulder, reaching back from his position, holding himself up with the tinges of strength left in his arms. Nothing exists in their space except the feelings of Madara's hair running through his fingers like it did all those years ago, rougher now but just as wild.

And he pushes in roughly without any of the meticulous care they once took. But Madara is fine with this. One hand over his shivering mouth. Hair streaking over his shoulder. He arcs back, rocking into Hashirama who's hilted in him. It's not a tie this time and there's nothing else to gain.

"You… you can't return anymore," he breathes, gasping heavily between every thrust. "You can't… I understand that. Not… even if you… wanted to."

Madara, who still has his hand pressed to his lips, does not reply.

.

Hashirama is still pulling on his haori by the time Madara stands fully dressed before him. He holds his ganbai in one hand. For defense.

"If you don't kill me here, I'll go on down my path," he says almost dryly. Without the same healing jutsu, every cut is stark against his skin. Dried blood against fresh looks almost black in the dim evening light.

Hashirama looks down. Lets his arm fall to his side.

"Then go," he says quietly. "I won't kill you today, but I will steel myself to follow through next time. Do what you like. But don't come for our village unless you intend to be part of it."

He wonders if it's cruel, but it's no measure of cruelty that Madara hasn't already used against him. He's sacrificed his own pride. Pleaded. Begged. Trained every evening by the Nakano's riverbank, building body and mind, steeling himself for the act he knew he wouldn't bring himself to do. It's time his opponent did the same.

Madara lifts himself up with the last strength left in his arms. Turns. Walks away.


	7. Chapter 7

**Pride**

* * *

Madara learns what pride is at the age of six, when the clan grounds are filled with the cloying scent of putrefaction and his eldest brother's body is brought back sliced in two. He understands when his father turns away and orders it burnt. Then turns to Madara with a look that promises glory.

But glory among Uchiha is worthless to a six-year-old boy. It consists of luridly proclaiming a wish to die and drag along the entrails of a Senju. Of clawing out one's eyes with all the strength left before death.

Madara is not yet used to this. All he can remember is the frightened face of his mother when the Senju shinobi found her and now the fading memories of his first brother practicing his kata in the compound.

.

Izuna's tiny hand pulls at his sleeve. When he speaks, his words sound like he's reciting from a book.

"Which one killed him?"

"Why do you need to know something like that?" Madara hisses at the boy.

Izuna looks at him blankly, and his sharingan spin in his eyes with their single infant tomoe. "Well, we aren't going to just let them have him. We have to make sure they pay us back, right? Nii-san was a good shinobi, right?"

Nii-san died because he fought while ill, and was caught by stray kunai probably meant for someone else. Madara considers admitting this, but Izuna would probably assume their brother could only be avenged by killing the entire Senju clan. So he keeps silent, puts one hand on the boy's thin shoulder, and steers him back into his room. And that night, he sleeps holding Izuna's shiver-wracked body tightly to his chest.

.

He learns about the satisfaction pride can bring when he – for the first time – throws a Senju boy to the ground. It's a slip of a kid with strangely two-colored hair but a Senju nonetheless.

Madara leans over the boy who is barely older than himself and grins wildly, feeling Uchiha pride run through his veins, a promised panacea that has only just caught up with him. "What's your name?"

The Senju doesn't look up. He tilts his head to one side, staring across the battlefield, as if trying to see something beyond the mass of bodies and metal. "H-Hashi-"

"Your _name_," Madara growls, face darkening.

"N-Nii-Nii-sa-"

"Name!"

But by this time, his fingers have already purpled the boy's neck.

.

The Senju boy by the river is the first one to challenge his pride. He's an infuriating kid that finds his way somewhere deep into Madara's head, and stubbornly holds his place even when he's pushed away.

And sometimes he speaks of a dead boy. Something pulls at Madara's chest when he does but it fades quickly, like so many other faces drenched in blood.

"I used to have three brothers, you know," he stares into the river, watching the tadpoles flutter against the small rocks deep down. "Now I've only got my youngest one. He's busy enough for ten, but still…"

Madara stands behind him, unraveling slowly, hesitantly. "I used to have four."

.

At the age of twenty, it no longer matters.

Izuna's Sharingan burn in his eyes as he watches the body being dragged off the battlefield. Before him is Hashirama, hesitating, wondering whether to resume their fight when his mind is so obviously absent.

But it still takes everything he has to stop Madara from massacring everyone – Senju and Uchiha alike – when the fog clears from his eyes.

And that evening, he doesn't know why he goes there, but he does it if only to settle the need of vengeance steaming heatedly inside him. The Nakano is just as he remembers it, and Hashirama is too, with his stupid clothes and his subtly tangled hair.

"Don't do this," he's warned. The Senju boy – now man, but the look in his eyes supports none of that – walks slowly towards him, carrying a look of utter seriousness and Madara hates this, glares at him red-eyed, blurs the space between them with fire. Their battle is as long as always, because the great are not meant to die quickly.

But it remains that the result is the same. Both of them equally tired but the Senju not as thoroughly exhausted. Madara's hand gripping his ganbai to keep himself standing, Hashirama steady on his feet.

"Fine," he sneers. "Do it. If it's done by your hand, it's a proper death."

"I won't kill you."

A painful laugh escapes his throat. "But you will, and you want to, because I was the one that killed your stupid sibling, my very first, and he was saying it – I remember now he was calling you – and then it was yours who killed my brother, like a revenge dealt for you by the world-"

The idiot Senju's arms are solid around him, holding him up better than his weapon could ever hope to. Clenching into his blood-stained hair. Hashirama's cheek presses against his. Sticky with blood but shivery-warm with life.

"No."

And the cloth of his haori muffles every one of Madara's wracking sobs.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sake and Kata**

* * *

Hashirama knows he is a bad gambler. He's tried and tested this theory numerous times with various amounts of money and each time he's waddled back to the Senju compound with an empty case in his hand and a frown on his lips. This time he stumbles as he goes, fingers curved loosely around an empty sake bottle. He should be worried about the villagers seeing their Hokage drunk but he's not, not at all, not one bit. It reassures them a little, to see that the strong are just like them. So he'll indulge himself, And hopefully Tobirama won't slice him to pieces when he gets back.

Konoha is still a divided land, and the divide is easy to see. It cuts a path across both sides of the Nakano that flows through the Uchiha compound. But there aren't any gambling houses within their new village so he visits the ones in Suikazura a little way off, and the path runs by this place. Every stroke of early morning sunlight reflects off the compound walls and hits him in the eyes as he places his hand along it to guide himself forwards. Despite this, he smiles.

Minutes later, there are sounds coming from the other side of the wall. A whack of muscle against wood. (Hopefully the Uchiha aren't flogging anyone to death). Hashirama peers in through the slits in the wood and his eyes widen at what he sees.

Kick. Kick. Kick. Then switch. Barely a second's hesitance between each strike. Then the figure leaps back, dark hair pinned at the nape of his neck, and stands, feet planted, in the middle of the grounds beyond the wall. Fingers laced and pressed to the base of his stomach. Then he moves. _Moves. _

Hashirama presses closer to the small gap in the wall, watching Madara as he passes neatly through his morning kata. Legs sharp with every move, fists striking the air with clockwork grace. He and Tobirama have always practiced their kata daily in the evening, but this is different. This is the Uchiha taijutsu style Madara has used so often against him since they began their friendly spars once again. It's different from the efficiency of how Hashirama has been taught to fight. This is a style built on the foundation of dance, holding almost stubbornly to motions that wield the body like an embroidered fan, sweeping through the air.

He knows he's been spotted, and when the figure disappears from the practice grounds inside, he waits patiently by the wall, holding himself up with one hand, while Madara takes the long way out of the compound.

And within seconds they're on the same side of the wall. Madara with his arms crossed. Sweat lining his forehead. Dark hair still pinned at his neck. Hashirama breathes in his presence. He does this literally and almost falls over with the effort, having to steady himself by dropping the bottle of sake.

Madara watches, unimpressed, as it crashes into pieces on the ground. Then he looks back to Hashirama with a helpless _why _look.

"Aha... Tobi was being mean to be about the trade with Ame, so I thought I'd grace the gambling places of Suikazura with my presence," he explains happily in a drunken slur.

"You are the most pathetic shinobi in existence. It's already morning."

"You look nice like that," Hashirama continues, ignoring the jab. He points shakily at how Madara's hair is pinned. It's still deep black. Even in the growing sunlight.

"Well, of course the ultimate reason for keeping hair almost as long as I am tall out of my face is to look nice. Why else?" Madara says dryly, although a slight smile curls the edges of his mouth.

"Oh. Well I knew that, of course I did," he attempts to take a step forward and promptly stumbles over his own foot.

One arm. Around his shoulders. Holding him up. Hashirama's vision swirls with the scent of dewy morning sweat, the firmness of Madara's arm. "Oh," he sighs. "Hope this isn't too much trouble."

"You're always trouble, idiot Senju," the smile is stark, unhidden by his tied hair, dripping with sarcasm and tinted with the slightly streak of endearment. The grass is soft beneath Madara's bare feet and Hashirama's one bare foot, and his shoe is (Rikudou knows where). They squelch into the morning dew when they walk but neither of them complains as they make their way slowly to the Senju compound on the far side of the village. Madara's arm holds him up, and even though Hashirama is perfectly capable of somehow stumbling across by himself like he's done fifteen times before, he leans in to enjoy the emanating warmth.


End file.
